U.S. ready to have bilaterals to resume 6-way talks: State Dept.

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 (Yonhap) -- The United States reiterated Friday it is ready
to have bilateral talks with North Korea to persuade the North to rejoin the
six-party forum on ending its nuclear ambitions, but added no meeting has been
set.

"We have decided that if such a meeting would lead to our shared goal, the goal
that we share with our five partners, of getting North Korea to return to some
kind of meaningful talks, within the six-party context, that we're willing to
consider this," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said. "We're still
considering it. And we simply have nothing to announce at this time."
North Korea last month extended an invitation to Stephen Bosworth, special
representative for North Korea policy, possibly as a result of international
sanctions for the North's nuclear and missile tests earlier this year.
In anger over the U.N. sanctions, North Korea said it will boycott the six-party
talks permanently and demanded a bilateral dialogue with the U.S. for a
breakthrough on the nuclear issue.
The U.S. has said it will have bilaterals only within the six-party framework,
hinting that a decision on Bosworth's Pyongyang trip will be made early next
month.
Kelly dismissed reports that U.S. officials are torn over how to deal with North
Korea.
"We've said all along that if North Korea took irreversible and verifiable steps
towards the complete denuclearization of North Korea, that we would be willing to
reciprocate in some positive manner," Kelly said. "You can call that approach
anything that you want, but this is something that we all agree on."
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak earlier this week proposed a package deal in
which the five other parties would provide the North with security guarantees,
massive economic aid and other incentives in return for complete
denuclearization, necessitating no further negotiations.
"I don't know -- I mean, this -- calling it a grand bargain is something that the
South Korean president has chosen to call it, but I think that we all share the
goal of getting to a comprehensive agreement that would lead to the goal of all
of our five partners, and that's the complete denuclearization of the Korean
Peninsula," Kelly said.
A visiting senior South Korean official said Thursday that South Korea will push
for the complete denuclearization of North Korea rather than multilateral deals
that do not lead to full disarmament.
"The Sept. 19, 2007, agreement is nothing more than a declaration on North
Korea's nuclear dismantlement which lacks a roadmap for its implementation," the
official said. "The Feb. 13, 2005, agreement, which is about North Korea's
nuclear reactor and reprocessing facilities at Yongbyon, does not address North
Korea's existing nuclear arsenal."
The official described the loopholes in the two deals signed by the Koreas, the
U.S., China, Japan and Russia, members of the so-called six-party talks. The
agreements set phases to the North's denuclearization, marking step-by-step
progress rather than a single-shot agreement.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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